'Truth spoken without moderation reverses itself'
This blog is a source for intellectual exploration. It includes a list of alternative resources and a source of free books. The placement of an article does not imply that I agree with it, merely that I found it thought-provoking. There are also poems and book reviews. Texts written by me are labelled. Readers are free to re-post anything they like.

Friday, February 24, 2017

How Trump Gets Away With Corruption By Jonathan Chait

One of the flaws in
the design of the federal government is that, while the founders envisioned
competing branches of government, unified party control of government can turn
those branches into partners who do not check each other’s abuses. A second
flaw is that Congress has a diffuse and often-confusing decision-making process
that can make public accountability extremely difficult. Both problems come
together in a new story that ought to be huge news but will instead be
relegated to legislative arcana.

Here is the story. The
House of Representatives has refused to investigate either one of the two
massive ongoing legal and ethical violations involving the Trump
administration: President Trump’s opaque ties (financial and otherwise) to
Russia, and his ongoing self-enrichment in office and violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.

If the House won’t
investigate, what happens next? Well, the next-best course of action would be
some form of public debate on the matter. This is not nearly as good as a real
investigation, since the absence of subpoena power means Republicans can simply
deny Trump has done anything wrong while blocking any efforts to acquire the
evidence that would prove the case. But at least it’s something. That’s why
House Democrats introduced a “resolution of inquiry” that would force
House action on these issues.

Today, Politico reports the House’s response: It will
divert the resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, which will (almost
certainly) vote on Tuesday along party lines to kill the inquiry. It will be a
minor story that probably receives scant or nonexistent coverage from
television news, and then it will be quickly over. To be sure, coverage of
Trump’s scandals will surely continue. But coverage of the House role in
permitting Trump’s behavior will be extremely minimal.

The problem — which is
a long-standing one and has protected both parties over the decades — is that
the chain of responsibility is too long and obscure to have any bearing on the
average voter. The average House Republican votes for the party leadership,
which then allocates decisions like this to individual committees, which can be
stacked with partisan loyalists from safe districts. (Of course, the overwhelming
majority of House members come from safe districts that insulate them from
accountability — another longstanding flaw in the system.).. read more: